There was the bang
and then this
bloom. Long falling action.
Each beginning—lip to lip,
slick birth, blue-red, momentous—
gave way to a succession of meals, hours
at the desk. Only a few
like this one
on an evening beach.
My mother and I
each hold one of my daughter’s hands.
I don’t touch my mother now,
only the brief embrace upon arrival
or departure. Not like once.
But if the years unspool
in a common pattern I will
hold her hand again. Sometime
I’ll cradle her elbow
steady down a stair.
This year I watched her
speak slowly and set cut food
before her own mother. I thought
what wild reversals time
makes ordinary, how we sail out
on the far sling of orbit
then come close again. A red sun
pillows on the surf
that pulls away from us,
and even on a cut stem, buds
keep opening.